A heating apparatus of this kind may be understood as meaning various apparatuses, such as a gas-burning apparatus, especially of the type with a flue or of the air-damper type, a liquid-fuel-burning apparatus, especially with evaporation under pressure or gasification at atmospheric pressure, a wood-burning apparatus and a solid-fuel-burning apparatus. This list is obviously not exhaustive. These apparatuses generally have a rear or back wall which may be made of cast iron, steel, refractory brick or some similar material, and which is attached to the rest of the heating body by means which are known per se. Any sound heating apparatus also requires an oxidizing-air inlet and a flue-gas outlet.
There are also known stoves which, through a change to the internal structure, can be used to burn various types of fuel (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,692 and FR-A-553427).
Finally, there is known a coal-burning heating apparatus, the rear wall of which is formed of three sections, the central section being removable and allowing easy access to, and therefore cleaning of, the flue ducts (see, for example, FR-A-709454).
All these heating apparatuses incidentally have variations in their shape and external appearance in order to meet criteria of fashion and the demands of the users. Indeed, as many of these apparatuses are intended to be situated in habitable rooms, a esthetic criteria come into play in their construction, and these criteria are changing ones.
There is therefore a need to satisfy these demands. However, the effect of this is that it leads to modifying not only the visible part of the heating body, but also at the same time parts of these appliances which are generally not visible, such as the rear wall. Now, the rear wall is fitted with important technical components such as the flue gas discharge, and sometimes a secondary-air inlet of a heat recuperator.
It is also necessary to take into account the fact that the rear wall and the "technical" equipment with which it is provided differ for all the types of heating apparatus, a nonexhaustive list of which was given above. There is obviously a problem with storing different components, mainly the walls and the equipment to be fitted on said walls, the cost of which is not insignificant.